While I have not always been in agreement with Mayor Platt on various issues, I applaud him for finally asking that we take a closer look at our school district's spending habits. I do not agree that Mayor Platt was "attacking the school district." He made mention of the cuts that the township has made and asked other agencies to look more closely at their spending. He did not target the schools and blame them entirely, he also mentioned the county and the fire district. He seemed to want to bring the township together so that we may all play a role in the solution. To hear others blow this out of proportion and attempt to divide our community further is sad, to say the least.
The only reason that school officials are opposed to these types of statements is because they do not want to be held accountable for anything! It is easier to create a divide and take the focus off of the real issue -- mismanagement and lack of accountability. The old expression "divide and conquer" comes to mind. They seem to be the words that our administrators live by! They attempt to pit parents against teachers, just like the division they tried to cause between special education and regular education parents. Now they are trying to divide our community on this critical issue. This puts a dangerous spin on the situation and our community needs to stand up and say "enough is enough!"
I have to point out that I do not agree that our teacher’s salaries should be attacked as the reason for our school taxes being so outrageous. When you look at the numbers, the average salary for a teacher in a comparable district to Cherry Hill, is about $55,500 per year. Our teacher’s annual salary is an average of $50,569 per year. They are earning approximately $5,000 less than the average teacher salary in a comparable school district. We are damn lucky to have retained the wonderful teaching staff that we have based on those numbers!
I do not believe that Mayor Platt is actually upset by the salaries of our teaching staff. There is much more to the school budget than that! Just take a look at the average salaries of administrators and you will surely see one of the main problems. In school districts comparable to Cherry Hill, the average administrator salary is $111,181. The average administrator salary in Cherry Hill is $122,166. Our administrators are paid approximately $11,000 more per year than average and we have far too many of them!
When it comes to our children, the average spending cost per pupil in comparable districts is $12,806. We are only spending $11,939 per student. We spend $867 dollars less per child per year, pay our teachers an average of $5,000 less per year, but pay our administrators $11,000 more per year! Does anyone else see a problem with this? And the school district has the nerve to highlight this fact in the recent budget pamphlet, as if it is an accomplishment! I say, it is a disgrace!
Our administrators are OK with wasting our money and nobody has held them accountable. It never occurred to our administrators that if they provided the special education services that are mandated, they would save an exorbitant amount in legal fees. It never occurred to them to stop handing out no-bid contracts. It never occurred to them that their high salaries have become a tremendous burden on taxpayers. It never occurred to them that if they would pay their invoices on time, they would avoid high monthly interest rates. It’s not like they didn’t have the money to pay invoices on time. $7.2 Million dollars of OUR MONEY was sitting there as a surplus amount!
When taxpayers questioned the surplus amount, they were made to look like fools. What surplus? We don’t have extra money lying around. In the meantime, Dr. Campbell had instituted a spending freeze because there was a question over our school district’s funds lasting through the end of June 2007. How many special needs children went without required therapies or needed support because of that spending freeze? How many teachers dipped into their own pockets for supplies in our classrooms? Which one of our administrators can’t add and subtract over there? If you have $7.2 Million extra – you have a surplus of funds!
Now suddenly we learn that taxpayers were right on target with their own calculations of the surplus. The school suddenly admits to a $7.2 Million fund balance. Yes, that would be a $7.2 Million surplus! And now they want more of our money?
Mrs. Giaccio, board of education member, claims that "the school district has cut administrators." From where? This budget calls for adding more! We need a board of education that is focused on serving our children and not catering to administrators. We need fiscal responsibility and leadership accountability. We need board members that do not have conflicting interests. We need a budget that is reasonable and affordable for residents. Yes, our children deserve a great education -- so put the money back in the classrooms where it belongs.
Please join me at Monday night's town council meeting to support teachers, children and taxpayers! The school district is putting a dangerous spin on this and we need to stop this at once! While we agree that our district has mismanaged funds and that it is time for true leadership and accountability in our schools, it would be sad to see our community divided again on critical issues.
Please also get out to vote on Tuesday! In my opinion, we need people like Nancy Muldowney and Stuart Chaifetz on our school board, who attend board of education meetings on behalf of all parents and taxpayers and have said, “Enough is enough!”
*Salary figure comparisons, as noted above, are from the Cherry Hill Public Schools publication, "Details of the 2008-2009 Proposed budget.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Dangerous Spin
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13 comments:
Yea Kathi! Tell it like it is.......that's what scares our administrators!
Kathi,
We need to give a list of where you can go to vote for the BOE election. let's make the election process easy as possible.
You couldn't have said it better Kathi!
I will be at Monday's meeting supporting Nanci and Stu
teachers and assistants support you!
Parents:
Rest assurred, we will still provide a great education to your children even if the budget is not passed. In addition to being taxpayers in this town, we are teachers that care about your children.
PS- thanks for supporting us, as well
* see our other comments on Politics/Politricks blog.
Mrs. Magee:
As usual, you are right on target. Thank you for defending the teachers in our town. We are as fed up with this administration as you are but cannot always be as vocal about it. For some of us, it would cost us our jobs.
I will cast my vote for the two candidates that you are supporting and may even right your name in, as many parents are suggesting!
You have single-handedly brought people together that administration has been trying to divide, as you stated above.
God bless you and best of luck to Nancy and Stuart!
I have seen the district/BOE president write, "While a forensic audit was beyond the scope of the KPMG study, their work did not indicate any evidence of theft or fraud."
This statement bugs me. It is kind of like a child going to their mother and saying, "I can't find my video game." Mom asks, "Did you look for it?" Of course the child has not.
You are not going to find it, if you don't look for it.
Kathi once again, you are right on the money, with honesty and dignity. When I read the Courier Post Article, my immediate reactions was: Who's telling the mayor that the teacher's increases are what raised the budget? Let's see.... ADMONISTRATION, or BOE ?
Of course that is where they would place the blame, to distract Platt from their own failures to run the district.
So now everything is blamed on Special Ed and the Teachers and the Teachers Union.
It's time to put a stop to it!
Why didn't the distict post the salary information that the State requires be posted with the budget?
Kathi, Your honesty is so refreshing! I know you have other commitments but if you had put your name on the Nancy- Stu ticket -- the 3 of you would have taken this election by a landslide.
I am voting for Nancy and Stu because they are the best hope for our town and our children. I am also voting no for the budget.
I read the KMG report (available on the CHPS website). Page 56, states "vendors may be receiving fradualent payments" and "district may be paying ficticious vendors"
How can BOE and Administrators say "their report did not indicate any evidence of theft or fraud" ???
When they chose to blame the teachers for the budget, they in fact used the ever so popular retaliation techniques - the teachers got the items on the contract they wanted (for the most part) so now it is their fault so let's increase the budget, blame it on them. Now let's meet with them and intimidate them to vote YES and write post cards to parents to have them vote YES or they may loose their jobs and the children may loose their programs and / or services. RETALIATION AND INTIMIDATION. Does is sound familiar to anyone?
VOTE FOR NANCY AND STU. THESE TWO, AND THESE TWO ONLY ARE OUR ONLY HOPE FOR CHANGE.
Alll fair points, Kathy. But perhaps we should recall that our administrative team is very late career and that part of their recent increases was from a failed "pay for performance" plan (it paid but didn't get much in performance). Also, we should note that our benefit costs seem quite high as a percentage of compensation.
In any case, I'd like the Mayor to propose the areas he would recommend cutting (e.g. which extra administrators) since he would have to do that anyway if the budget were defeated. For example, if he proposed to cut bussing back to the state guidelines, he'd have to make sure that major road crossings were clearly marked and patrolled.
Kathi,
Have you read the CH Sun? The Mayor is letting the citizens of CH know that their system of public services is the worst fiscally ran system of the 50 states. We actually have more school districts than townships in this state!!!!! He basically said that there are more (expensively paid) chiefs than indians. Sound familiar??? Corzine is cutting back state aid to the townships which is making every township look at how they do business. The idea of "economies of scale" is now being brought into play. Even if he only mergers CH with a hand full of nearby smaller townships, the effect will be a substantial one. Police, Fire, School, and other services will probably be dealt with individually. How much does our upper echelon of school administrators cost us? 3-5 million a year with their perks included?, or is it higher? Police and Fire not as high of an expense but an expense none the less. The neighboring townships may or may not have the range of expense of us, but these would be duplicate expensive positions that could be deleted. He stated that the savings in the transportation cost alone would be worth it. Positions up to Principal would probably not be touched unless they merger 2 smaller enrolled schools into one. The one thing he didn't state was who would be in control of creating this new system that is needed. If it's the present administration they'll be scrambling to save their jobs and it'll be a botched up job. If the Mayors get together with an 3rd party that gains nothing in the deal then it'll be a more efficient restructuring, and eliminated some of the tax burden to the taxpayers. Looks like the Mayor may still have the last word with the admin. and the BOE.
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